Cailin McNeil, a human development and human services major, is the founding president of the National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association at Merrimack. This club’s focus is to help undergraduate and graduate students navigate the professional world of communication science disorders, including deafness, stuttering, learning disabilities, and brain injuries. The club is recognized by ASHA, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. This semester, Cailin has been able to lead monthly club meetings and create fun events to support the community.
One of the events was a virtual 5K campus walk to support the Paces for Faces foundation. This foundation supports people with cleft lip or cleft palate, which is a common birth condition where there’s an opening or split in the roof of the mouth and lip. Under Cailin’s leadership, the club exceeded its fundraising goal for this event, raising over $200 in donations.
“It definitely went better than I thought,” Cailin said. “It was… our first ever event that we put on. We had 25 people show up for the virtual 5K, and I wasn’t expecting [that] many people. It was really rewarding to see people supporting a cause like that.”
Cailin and Dr. Rachel Aghara worked closely to create this club, as it serves as a great resume builder for people who want to go to graduate school or pursue a career as an assistant in the field of speech pathology. Dr. Aghara recently created the minor of communication across lifespan, which is a prerequisite for the graduate school program of speech-language pathology, which is what Cailin wants to do. Dr. Aghara was also helpful in spreading the word on campus about the club, as it targets a very specific group of people.
While the career path is unique, it also brings in a unique group of people together. “It’s really interesting to hear about different people’s backgrounds and what led them to this path,” Cailin said. “There’s people in the club who want to do occupational therapy, and it’s cool to see how many different career paths relate to speech pathology..”
Cailin is excited to continue the club’s success into the spring semester. “Going forward, I’m hoping to get a lot more engagement,” she said. “Hopefully we could get grad students on board as well, and eventually clinical fellowship students. We could do a speech and hearing clinic and do screenings for low-income areas, because a lot of schools in the area don’t have the option to get a screening or evaluation for speech and hearing.”
For people interested in joining the club, their events are on CORQ, through the OSI page. Their email is nsslha@merrimack.edu, and they have an Instagram page, which is @merrimacknsslha.
